I want one - Celebratory 2010 FIFA World Cup T-Shirt

 

need I say more?

Art Exposure I - ARTHK 10

ARTHK 10 was another fine showing of world class calibre art from something over a 100 galleries from all over the world. The writing of this particular entry comes just days after the closing, just enough time for me to digest the work and formulate some thoughts to share.

Overall, this years showing was better than the previous and probably on par with the first show I attended two years ago. I've probably biased last years show simply because I felt like the photography shown was stronger but the other work, be it drawing, painting, sculpture or video didn't stand up to the level I thought the photography stood. This year, I was particularly please with pretty much everything however the volume of work to absorb was somewhat overwhelming. I described the viewing of the show to someone, after two walkthroughs myself, as like reading 50 magazines in one sitting and trying to articulate three articles from each publication. It was that hairy for me.

Now you might ask why I'm not showing pictures here - well, its out of respect for the artist. I might be little old fashioned in that way, but if you can't remember the piece for itself, a picture is just going to influence what you think it actually looked like and what it actually made you feel. I did however take pictures of the artist names and/or the cover of their books for reference. Why? Cause it makes me do my homework. I believe that if you want to remember a piece that affected you, you should study their work. That's what annoyed me at the show was the fact that people photographed the work like it was theirs. For me that's simply disrespectful. Besides that most galleries don't allow viewers to photograph the work. But I will continue on with my analysis before really ranting.

Again, this was a strong year for the show. Its every getting more interest from bigger and better galleries which benefits viewers and buyers alike. The photography over previous years was probably the strongest. Last years highlight was probably the predictably mammoth Andreas Gursky piece. Last years low was probably vendors displaying like-Gursky scale photographs but with weaker artists. Now I will say this - the HK art community will love seeing Gursky's, Demand's, Hofer's, Struth's, but they probably won't appreciate Winogrand's, Eggleston's or Frank's. A photographer I have yet to see, one I'd really like to see in HK, a Gregory Crewdson.

The rest of the show was really good. Overall I sensed that the Chinese artists were maturing away from the Mao-communist era oppression work and into the new area of Chinese art. The Korean work was strong this new. As always the Europeans and Japanese artist always inspired. As a mentioned before the Gursky shown was brilliant but I would have liked to have seen the race track image from that series. I was happy to see a diCorcia but the picture shown wasn't something to write home about.

A couple of things annoyed me and I will rant about them now. 1) Don't copy: I saw a bunch of copies for more famous work. Some artists can pull it off, others just plain old plagiarize. If you do, its just lazy. Being influenced is one thing, copying is another. I saw Chuck Close's work, probably the second or third time I've had the opportunity, then further down the road I saw some other photorealism that resembled Close's earlier work. I was, as you can imagine, disappointed; 2) Don't touch the art: I don't care if its covered with glass or is security wrapped in lazers and alarms, you never ever touch the art; 3) Please don't photograph the work. I was there with a friend and I told her my peeve and she still photographed it. Do your research, buy their book cause the reprints in the books are a hundred times better than the picture you took on your camera; 4) If you don't know something ask someone: I am usually asked to guide friends through a gallery or a show and share some thoughts on the work. That's fine and I enjoy giving them my opinions. Art is like any other medium, be it books or movies. After you see it you have an opinion. Art is the same way. You might not know a lot about art but others do, like the gallery assistant. They should know everything under the sun about the artist's work. They are your experts. At the show I saw work from Thomas Demand and Gerhard Richter. I knew their work but for Richter's, I saw some work I wasn't familiar with - the abstracts. His retrospective I attended back in SF may have featured some of these but I didn't remember it. I flipped through his book at the show and soon enough I started questioning the gallery personnel about the work. She answered promptly and gave me the information I needed. As for the Demand photograph, the same occurred.

I hope next year the work remains as strong and perhaps reach a higher level.

Brainwaves + Star Wars = force toy?

yea, I was thinking the same thing when I came up with the title to this blog but it will start to make sense once I go into what it is.

I was catching up to my Monday blogs and webbing when I came across something, well something funny. Once again I was looking up the videos on Collegehumor.com, now hit or miss on the humor. Anyway, they started reviewing this Star Wars toy that involves the force. This video should clear out the 'wha' factor:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

I figure that someone from my sphere of friends will buy this thing. If they did I would like to like try it. Come on, its the force ya'll!

Internet dating has gone too far

I thought it was a joke the first time I heard about it. Then I saw a commercial on TV.

Let's go back a little. Dating is hard for some people. I'll admit, I don't date that often so this online product would ideally be good for a guy like me. I've heard of people meeting there mates/better halves online and some have enjoy great relationships through them.

Now fast forward to about 10 minutes ago. I'm sitting at the computer, writing down some ideas. I usually have the SlingBox running in the background and I guess my brother or his girlfriend left Top Chef on. Its great cooking show without all the over the top drama most other reality shows imbue themselves in. Anyway, a turn to a commercial break leads to an ad, well, its this ad:

I still thought it was a joke so I checked out the website. Its real. Its basically a site for older women to hook up with younger men. Cougars, if you don't know the term it describes attractive older women who prowl night clubs for younger men, I guess aging bachelorettes.

Bizarre.

Fandom - Star Wars Uncut

A little while back I heard about this project and since then I've heard and watched a bunch of clips from various 'filmmakers'. Its basically an indie/home movie version to scenes from Star Wars. The idea was to get hundreds even thousands of fans to remake/refilm a certain scene that reflected the original. Over the course of many months, the organizers have cut a sequence (below) that resembles the original's sequence starting from the lightsabre fight between Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobe through to the escape of Millennium Falcon fending off Tie Fighters in the wake of the Death Star. This is the fans version of that sequence. Enjoy!

 

Star Wars Uncut "The Escape" from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

Internet Gems - Party School Texts

Its everyone's responsibility to share and sharing the internet is amongst the must. I fell across an article on Huffington Post about the Best Party Schools in America. The URL they cited, http://partyschooltexts.com is pretty much what it sounds like - drunk texts only identified by their schools and not by senders. A good thing for the senders I think.

If you're interested in this kind of silliness check out http://failbook.com/, another site that posts sometimes fun (perhaps some unauthentic) facebook wall posts.

Clever photography/graphic design

Every once and a while I'll bump into some smart photography on the web and lately I've bumped into a site that's got some quality photography.

My Modern Met is interesting site reviewing and bring into view cool pictures, architecture, restaurants, etc.

Even though they have some really good fashion and sexy NSFW shots, this one series labelled 'TrustCorp Rebranding Project caught my eye. In most respects, a lot of photography in general is designed to look slick and smooth. Its bound to get, well, boring. When the visual pun is used like when a verbal pun is used in writing, it brings something new and exciting to the table. The pictures are pretty much self explanatory but if you didn't catch it its the rehashing of branding, bringing the blunt truth to what the product does or ultimately what they can make fun of.

here's some pictures